Crusader (16 page)

“Aye,” he eventually said. “I have the Enchanted Song Book. Caelum…”

“I tried it, you know.”

“I know. Axis told me.”

Caelum turned his eyes from the rolling ocean and looked back at his brother. “You have spoken to our father?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And we are friends, if not father and son.”

Caelum nodded, and let his eyes drift back to the sea. “I wish I had been able to be his friend.”

Something in Caelum’s voice made tears jerk to DragonStar’s eyes. Only a few hours ago he’d been consumed with a fierce and hateful envy for Caelum, and yet here Caelum was expressing, if not envy, then regret, at something DragonStar enjoyed and not he.

“Did father tell you what happened when I tried one of the Songs?”

“You felled a Hawkchild, but were so consumed with hate and rage that you almost…”

“Almost became a Demon myself.”

DragonStar could not help the cold shudder ripple through him. Gods, what
was
it the Book contained?

“And when you danced before Qeteb?” he said.

Caelum laughed, low and cynical. “I would have done more damage if I’d offered him a flower.”

Something danced at the very edge of DragonStar’s consciousness, but his mind could not catch hold of the thought.

“And what did happen when you met Qeteb in the Maze?” he asked, so softly his voice could hardly be heard above the roar of the surf.

Caelum took a very long time to answer. “I made him laugh,” he finally said. “I made the entire world laugh.”

DragonStar lifted a hand and placed it on Caelum’s shoulder, and the two brothers sat there for a long time, only love, the scent of the flowers, and the bellow of the ocean between them.

DareWing had brought the Strike Force to the northern coast for a particular reason: here the Demons’ influence was likely to be least. Although the demonic hours would affect none of them, DareWing wanted to keep the Strike Force as safe as was possible for as long as possible. The Icebear Coast would also have the least concentration of crazed animals. What DareWing wanted more than anything else was to find a small pack of something that the Strike Force could whet their teeth on. And then a larger pack of something, and one day DareWing wanted to launch the Strike Force at the entire mass of lunacy that milled about the Maze.

First, they would start with the mountains themselves.

“See here?” Caelum said, thumbing through the Book, “this one is of fear, and this one of despair.”

DragonStar studied the Song of Despair, absently converting it to symbol in his mind. “This book is full of everything the Demons have ever projected,” he said, “and I must be the one to let these ‘emotions’ consume me so I may project them back at the Demons.”

“Is that so?” Caelum said, and his voice sounded more than mildly puzzled. Again DragonStar had the feeling that something of immense importance hovered at the very edges of his mind.

“Well, I suppose it must be you,” Caelum continued, “for you are the true StarSon and the wielder of Acharite magic, without which no-one can use this Book.”

DragonStar closed the Song Book and put it to one side. “Caelum, what happened when Qeteb caught up with you?”

Caelum frowned, then his brow cleared. “I cannot remember,” he said, and laughed with relief. “I remember only that the Dance of Death was such an abysmal failure the Demons ridiculed me. Then I remember fleeing through the Maze, and then something happened…I…I fell over, and despaired, thinking that this must have been how RiverStar felt when I killed her. I begged her forgiveness, and then
suddenly I was in the Field of Flowers, and I knew no more of Qeteb.”

“Ah,” DragonStar said.

They sat in silence for another while longer, and then DragonStar stirred. “Where is DareWing? He should be here somewhere with the Strike Force.”

“Oh, he grew impatient,” Caelum said, “and thought to save Tencendor all by himself.”

“What!”

“He took the Strike Force,” Caelum said, “and went back into the wasteland. Contentedness is not yet their lot.”

“Gods!” DragonStar wondered what he should do: go rescue DareWing from a situation he might well be able to control on his own, or go see the one person who might truly tell him the secret of the book?

Finally DragonStar got to his feet and whistled Belaguez over, tucked the Enchanted Song Book under his arm and leapt on the stallion’s bare back. Best to make sure about DareWing first.

The Alaunt jumped up, milling about the horse’s legs.

“Come back,” Caelum said, wistfully, and DragonStar nodded, and drew the doorway of light with his sword.

DareWing wheeled above the ruins of Star Finger, the ghostly apparitions of his force dipping and swaying about him. He was lost in his memories of his early years spent in and about the mountain. Now it was broken and destroyed, and would never prove a safe haven for the Icarii race again.

Nothing in Tencendor would, come to that.

“Strike Leader.”

A soft voice above his right wing snapped DareWing out of his reverie.

“What is it?”

There was a silence, and DareWing regretted his sharp tone. “I am sorry. What do you need to tell me, MirrorWing?”

MirrorWing—or the being that had once been MirrorWing—pointed to a canyon below.

“I think someone down there is trying to attract our attention.”

DareWing looked down, and could not stop his exclamation of surprise.

WolfStar thought they’d never see him. Curses! What was wrong with their star-damned eyes?

But then, what were they to start with? The creatures were Icarii-shaped, but their bodies were indistinct, almost transparent.

And their wings…WolfStar knew that Enchanters would have committed murder to understand the spells that made these wings glow with such incandescent colour.

WolfStar waved an arm slowly, trying to get them to hurry up. Stars, but every movement was agony! He’d only fallen some twenty or thirty paces—bouncing from rock wall to rock wall—down the chasm before he’d tumbled onto a rock ledge that sloped backwards under an overhang. By the time StarLaughter had sent her merriment—
her mad, mad merriment—
chasing down the chasm after him, he’d been hidden from view.

And from there WolfStar had painfully, drop by drop, handhold by handhold, clambered to the bottom of the chasm, and then hauled himself along its rock-littered floor until he’d emerged into what passed for sunlight in this northern devastation.

And there he’d lain, thinking over StarLaughter’s words: Caelum not the StarSon? Well, it made sense. The idiot had been useless against Qeteb. WolfStar’s mouth curled in a small smile. The true StarSon was still out there somewhere, still controlling power. And WolfStar knew there was not a man alive he could not manipulate and eventually control. He
would
regain power again, but first he needed to know who the true StarSon was.

“Who?” he whispered. “Who?” That bitch StarLaughter had distracted him before he could force an answer from her…

He looked up again at the soft sound of wings. Perhaps a score of the Icarii-creatures were now only some fifty paces above him, and dropping fast.

With them was a more conventional Icarii birdman—at least he had a solid enough body, although he was incongruously dressed in a white linen tunic and sandals.

“Well,” WolfStar said, as the group landed about him, “at least you do not seem demon-mad, even if the majority of you look a trifle vitreous. What has happened? Has the loss of the Star Dance bled you of your solidness?”

“Loss of life,” said one, a female by the lightness of her voice, “has made us less fleshy than what we were wont to be.”

“Who are you?” said WolfStar, wondering if he was going to spend the rest of his life asking:
Who?

“Who are
you
?” said the one flesh-solid Icarii among them.

WolfStar rolled slightly so he could stare the birdman in the face. “I am WolfStar SunSoar and I demand you take me to the StarSon.”

The birdman laughed, and, raising his eyes to a spot somewhere behind WolfStar, said, “I think he comes to greet you, renegade.”

And WolfStar rolled over, groaning, and stared to the east.

A man and a white horse had emerged from a canyon, and the horse’s mane and tail dripped with stars.

“Gods,” WolfStar whispered as he finally recognised the man’s face.

“Well met, WolfStar,” DragonStar said, and grinned. “I should have known that you would somehow survive the Demons’ attentions.”

WolfStar could barely manage to keep his face bland as the man dismounted from his horse and walked towards him.
Drago? The StarSon? And, ye gods, feel the power that radiated from him!

“And I should have known,” WolfStar responded softly, “that you’d always find a way to realise your ambition, Drago.”

“DragonStar,” he corrected, and squatted by WolfStar’s side, running a gentle hand over the Enchanter’s body. “You are hurt. Badly.”

“I have been out and about,” WolfStar said, “while others donned pretty clothes.” He flicked his eyes over DareWing and the members of the Strike Force that had gathered around.

DragonStar’s face tightened, but he did not respond to WolfStar’s taunt. “Whose blood is this?”

“Caelum’s.”

DragonStar rocked back on his heels in surprise.
“Caelum’s?
You were there when Qeteb—”

“Killed him? Yes. The fool boy, he walked straight onto the tip of the Demon’s sword. Had you enchanted him into stupidity, Drago? Or was it a natural fault…Caelum ever had a sackful of those.”

DragonStar reached out and buried his fingers in WolfStar’s hair, and the birdman winced in pain. Was everyone going to haul him about Tencendor by the roots of his hair?

“Caelum died a hero’s death!” DragonStar said.

“How can you be sure of that?” WolfStar snapped. “Were you watching?”

“What happened?”

WolfStar chose not to respond.

DragonStar gave the Enchanter’s head a wrench.
“What happened?”

WolfStar growled, and grabbed at DragonStar’s hand with both of his own.

DragonStar’s grip did not loosen, and WolfStar could not pry him free.

“What happened?” DragonStar gave WolfStar’s head such a twist that all present could hear the bones in the birdman’s neck crack.

“Caelum walked into the portion of the Maze where I lay,” WolfStar ground out, hate and resentment for DragonStar filling every nuance of his voice, “as if he were walking into a picnic ground. He had a stupid, vacant smile on his face.”

He was already walking through the Field of Flowers, thought DragonStar, and the smile he had on his face must have been beauteous, not stupid. “And then?”

“Then Qeteb rode his black nightmare up behind Caelum, and Caelum turned.”

“And?”

“And Qeteb ran his sword through Caelum—Gods! The boy reached out and grabbed the blade as it sliced into him!”

DragonStar stared at WolfStar. There was something else…something that WolfStar was not deliberately holding back but thought so unimportant as not worth the relation.

“And what else?” DragonStar said, his tone compelling.

WolfStar sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Caelum said something to the Demon that drove him crazy.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Oh, how I do love you’.”

DragonStar still stared at WolfStar, but his eyes were far, far away. Caelum must have turned in the Field of Flowers and seen RiverStar. He had spoken to her, not Qeteb.

But what he’d said had driven the Demon…“crazy”?

DragonStar refocussed his eyes on WolfStar. “I apologise for what I am about to do to you,” he said, “but methinks you have used it on many a soul before now.”

And DragonStar forced the memory of Caelum’s death up from WolfStar’s subconscious into the full light of consciousness.

Caelum, turning, smiling, holding out his hand. “Oh, how I do love you.”

And Qeteb going crazy with…what? Hate?

Or…fear?

“For thousands of years you have roamed about doing nothing but mischief in the name of ultimate good,” DragonStar said, “but finally I think you may have done this land a service. Come on, stand up.”

DragonStar got to his feet, and—once again—WolfStar found himself being hauled upwards by his hair.

He shouted with rage and squirmed about, but DragonStar’s grip did not loosen.

DragonStar turned to DareWing. He was annoyed with the birdman for leaving the Field of Flowers, but for the moment that annoyance could wait. “None of the Demons are about, and I think this place safe enough for the time being. Watch Belaguez and the Alaunt for me, will you? I think I know just the place for WolfStar…if it can bear the shock.”

And, so saying, DragonStar unsheathed the lily sword, drew his rectangle of light, and stepped through Spiredore as quickly as he could into Sanctuary, dragging WolfStar with him.

D
ragonStar moved briskly through Spiredore—gods alone knew how dangerous it was getting now—while dragging WolfStar behind him. The birdman was muttering something incoherently about StarLaughter and the tower and his hair, but DragonStar paid him no heed.

His mind was full of jumbled thoughts and images, and they were all to do with Caelum’s smiling, love-filled face, and the mystery of the Enchanted Song Book, which, somewhat unbelievably, for he had not been aware of it for some time, DragonStar still clutched under his free arm.

Suddenly they were tumbling through the doorway of light onto the approach to Sanctuary, and DragonStar briefly wondered how he’d managed it with his hands full of the Song Book and WolfStar.

“Where are we?” WolfStar gasped, rubbing his head as DragonStar finally let him go.

“Somewhere I imagine you thought you’d never see,” DragonStar said. “Somewhere safe. Sanctuary.”

“What?”

DragonStar did not answer. An Icarii birdwoman was spiralling above them in the sky, and DragonStar beckoned her down.

“This is WolfStar SunSoar,” he said, and the birdwoman paled. “He is injured. Can you arrange that he be taken where his injuries can be healed? But, ware! Do not trust him.”